Dave's P90X Progress and Review

Well, so far so good. Week 3 has been finished and I can't really say I'm that pleased with my progress. I am not getting discouraged, I'm just thinking that I could be doing better, or be could be doing more to help with the weight loss. Like I said, I came off of doing CrossFit and I feel that this might not be enough work to kick start a weight loss and keep it off type of movement here in north jersey. (Sometimes I write posts that I think are ridiculous. This might be one of them). So, I think there are a few adjustments that need to be made.

1. Commitment - I feel like I could devote more time each day to making myself more conscious about my workouts. I am completing a very good majority of them, but I feel like I could be doing more. Maybe doubles?


2. Diet - I have come to a conclusion. My diet its absolutely the one thing holding me back from attaining any sort of goal, whether it's weight goals or athletic goals and I need to get this down. I do everything right with everything else. I may get a little egotistical in this next part of this bullet, but bear with me (bare with me? No, bear with me. I don't need any nudies on my blog). So, everything that has to do with athletics hasn't really ever come hard to me, especially in the gym. I completely understand the way to lift weights and have phenomonal form. My strength is awesome. I've deadlifted 400+ pounds, done turkish getups with a 105 pound kettlebell, shoulder pressed 160 pounds, and the list goes on. Clearly, I've set some pretty good personal records for the average person, but the one thing that makes me high plateaus, must be my diet. I'm a big dude, and I can't imagine the numbers I would be able to post if I just ate properly. Maybe it's an addiction to bad food, maybe it's just that I have no self control when it comes to eating the right thing, I don't know. I went vegetarian for a month (January 2010) and it was AWESOME, though I feel I didn't get enough protein. So, that extreme didn't work out. And that's what the problem is. I always go to an extreme. I either eat a ton of food, or I don't really eat at all. And the second part of that sentence doesn't happen often. I feel that the key success factor in any athletic regiment is diet and that is the one thing I will be focusing on this week and next so that my diet will become more of a lifestyle, rather than a diet. This is key. It will not be a diet, it will just be how I eat.


3. There is no number 3.

Equipment review time! Here are the pieces of equipment I have been using for P90x so far.

1. Golds Gym Braided Resistance Cord - This broke on my in my second week. I thought it was good, but it wasn't that good. If you are weak, don't get it. It's braided for super strength, but not near as good as free weights. Handles were comfy, but the part where the handle meets the cord hurt when doing curls. Not happy about that.
2. Iron Gym Extreme - This is great, but my door is a little wide and it's starting to leave marks. I'm 245 lbs and I am confident it will hold me. Please don't stop from buying this if you fear it won't hold you. It's iron. It's gym. It's extreme. Do it now.
3. Office chair - for dips. Also doubles as a nice place to rest under extreme circumstances.

Please check my twitter for random updates and ramblings! @p90xprogress is my twitter name. I gotta get to bed, but thanks for reading. Please post any replies or comments.

So, I'm going to be going on Day 14 tomorrow and I'm feeling great, but I am NOT FEELING SORE?! Is this because I haven't been pushing myself? Is this because I am coming from an extreme training regiment (CrossFit) that kicked my but into shape? In my head I'm thinking, "No way, look at these before pictures. You're huge." But when I look at myself physically during the workouts, and how I physically feel afterwards and the next couple days, I'm just not that sore. I feel that this is a good way to measure progress. I had to skip two workouts, but I make them up with awesome cardio blasts at our gym. My wife and I live in a condo and have two gyms accessible 24 hrs/day!

So, I am going to try to crank up the intensity. If this doesn't work, I'm going to try to incorporate my kettlebell into the workouts rather than the resistance band. OH! That's another story. My resistance band broke! What a rip off! I almost want to write a review about it but I don't like to hurt a company. So, I got this one at Wal*Mart (because we live next to a walmart and next to a target. it's like superstore paradise. crazy.) and less than 2 weeks into p90x I broke my band. So I'm going to have to pick one up tomorrow night so I have it for wednesday. Oh, and my pullups aren't that great still, but I have been noticing improvements. It still stinks to me that I can't do a kipping pullup on the iron gym, but it's ok. Once it gets nicer out, i'll be doing them on the pullup bar that they have at our fitness nature walk on the condo grounds. Its pretty cool, dip stations, sit up stations, pull up stations...etc all over this little trail next to the club house.

Ok, so i'm on week 3 and I haven't really noticed much of a weight loss, or much soreness, but i would say my muscles are starting to accommodate the movements rather than get stronger. This could be because i'm already strong, but I'm not sure. I think this muscle confusion isn't that confusing to my muscles because of CrossFit. Well, like I said, I probably need some real weights, so i'll be using my 53 lb kettlebell for the weights. Let's see how this works! should be interesting! Those guys are going for 30's i'll be doing it with a 53, and a kettlebell. I wonder if i'll die doing kickbacks.... hahaha - maybe i'll just use a weighted back pack for stuff like that until i can justify to myself going to sports authority (also next door) and buying weights...

maybe i'll check craigslist now.

ok, later guys - thanks for reading the ramblings. any words of advice are always greatly appreciated and i will reply!

-dave

So far, P90X is kicking butt! So far I'm feeling great (so to speak. I'm down with a really bad cold, but I wanted to start my workouts on a Monday. Happens to be that I am sick. It's ok, just makes workouts a little tougher!)

Let's see how we do this here. I'll do bullet points so we can keep track of what's up. Since I'm probably not going to post EVERY day, I will just outline my days.

• Day 1 of P90X - Chest and Back - This workout was solid! I am a strong believer that pullups show absolute strength. If you can't do a pull-up, you can't do much in life. Now, don't let that get you down, I just am a huge promoter of functional strength. This is part of the reason why I love CrossFit so much. I feel that you need to be functionally fit to overcome many obstacles in life, and if you are an adventurous person, if you work on a farm, or anything else in life... LIFTING STINKIN GROCERIES, I don't know. It's just a matter of you being able to do what your every day life calls you do to and doing it with maximum efficiency. So, i rambled enough about pullups. I'm happy about them. If you are nervous about the bar hurting your door frame, don't be, unless you live in one of these. I really enjoyed day one. Haha, know what's funny about that rant? I am currently really bad at pullups because of hurting my shoulder doing ring pushups 2 months back. So, I do 1 leg straight out onto a chair and the other leg hanging for all my pulls. This has proved satisfactory and until I can improve the shoulder, I won't be doing pulls, unless I'm outside at my condo and can do kipping pullups.
  

• Day 2 of P90X - Plyometrics - Butt kicker. If you're out of shape, this one is the 'mother of all workouts'! Haha. Props to Mr. Horton on that one! Ok, so this is a phenomonal workout. It involves a ton of jumping around, keeps the heart rate up, and keeps you in the zone at all times. Really enjoyed this one. Was able to keep up. Liked it. QUESTION FOR CONDO OWNERS! - DO YOU DO PLYOMETRICS IN YOUR CONDO OR APARTMENT? IF SO, WHAT DO YOU DO TO DAMPEN THE NOISE? There is only so far landing soft can go, and I'm a 244 pound dude. Hopefully that doesn't last long, but I'm just curious. If you have any suggestions, please leave comments down below. Oh, and I already mentioned I need to lose weight, no need to mention that again, haha. Though, I must say, I am pretty good at landing softly.
  

• Day 3 of P90X - Shoulders and Arms - Ab Ripper X - This was awesome. I love doing shoulders because it's very therapeutic for reasons previously mentioned. I would like to let you know that it was my first time doing Ab Ripper X. This is because I am sick (also previously mentioned) but I am feeling much better than I have been so I went for it. TOUGH! Very enjoyable, made me want to lose my fat much faster, but really really great ab workout. One question about the Chair Dips. DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A CHAIR DIP SUBSTITUTE FOR SOMEONE WITH ROTATOR CUFF ISSUES? I subbed in triceps extensions. This seemed to do the job, but I soon realized we do the same thing later on in the workout. Any help in the comments section is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So, my overall impression of P90x so far is that is a great system to use to workout. I'm just finished with Day 3 and I'm hooked. I also have a coworker doing the series with me and he is liking it too. I'm a day ahead of him, but that's alright. I am pretty sure he will catch up and double up one day so he gets in line with the sheet we are keeping.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all in the comments section. I will be checking this regularly and have it hooked up with my iPhone so I will be able to reply to posts on the fly.

Cheers!

Welcome to my new home for the next 90 days! I want to start out by giving you a little background on myself, including what I have done as far as athletics, my diet...etc to help you get an idea of the type of individual I am as far as health and body goes. I feel this information will help you gauge yourself verse your accomplishments or what you are looking to accomplish. So without further delay, this is Dave in a nutshell:

1. Athletic background - I have been doing CrossFit since July 2009. I have excelled in strength with kettlebells and even took a class with Jeff Martone where I was certified as a CrossFit kettlebell instructor. Previous to this, I was going to a gym off and on trying to get jacked, but it never worked and I attribute it mostly to eating. I am built strong, and can lift good weights, but nothing too special. 2 years back I was an avid mountain biker, conquering many trails in the North Jersey/New York area. I also took up the sport of rock climbing at an indoor rock gym in the area, but soon grew out of that due to my job in New York City. Before that, I was in college and in high school I played baseball, soccer and eventually joined the golf team. I did the basics in high school.
   
2. Diet background - I have never been a good eater. I don't know why, I don't know where it came from, but I like sweets.... a lot. I mean, I can go through cookies like it's my job. I just got out of a month of eating vegetarian. It went alright, but I definitely wasn't producing enough red blood cells. Took too long to recover from workouts, and I completely attribute it to not enough red cells to carry protein and oxygen for recovery. So, I'm shifting back to healthy meats, and trying to cut out red meats from the diet (except the burger I get to have as my one reward for being able to stick it out!).
3. My Goals - Right now I weigh 245 (as of 2/1/2010). I am hoping to get back down to 215. This is going to be a significant decrease since I haven't been as that weight since about Dec '07. Not only am I looking to lose some weight, I'm looking to build some overall strength and really hone my diet. Now that I proved I can go full out vegetarian, I think I can really incorporate a healthy diet that can foster good results using P90X.

So, everyone posts before and after photos. I would like to do the same. This will help keep me accountable, and will also let me see progress as I move through the P90X schedule. These photos are not retouched. They are taken with a Nikon D5000 and only AUTO ADJUSTED with Windows Live Photo Previewer.


P90X - Day 1 "Before" Photos